Stellar Communications Consultancy is the mouthpiece of Stella Thng, a veteran mass communication practitioner with over 20 years of experience. A former magazine editor with MediaCorp Pte Ltd, she now runs her own editorial, branding and public relations firm while shaping the next generation of communicators as a lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and a former associate lecturer at Republic Polytechnic.

When Kristen Stewart & Nicholas Hoult Came To Visit…

… My condo, not me, sorry.

So something interesting happened last week. On Tue night, I saw a notice at my condo, Reflections at Keppel Bay, that part of our driveway would be closed for a couple of days to facilitate filming for a Hollywood movie. It didn’t say which movie nor name the stars. My first thought: “I don’t drive along that stretch anyways, doesn’t bother me.” And I promptly forgot all about it.

Then I woke up the next morning (10 Sep 2014) and saw this, literally from my bedroom window:

Woke up to the view of a Hollywood crew filming ‘Equals’.

A bunch of actors dressed in white, standing in position and waiting for the director to start filming. There were tents set up, trucks of equipment and crew running around adjusting costumes.

Now, I’m no giggly teenage girl (sorry, too old!) and I’m pretty chill about meeting celebs. I used to be the editor of the now-defunct entertainment mag, LIME, and often jetset around, interviewing the likes of Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams, Britney Spears etc. (True story — I once went shopping with one of the NSync members’ girlfriends in Tokyo. She zapped her credit card so many times, AMEX finally refused to accept it cos they thought her card was stolen!)

But even I have to admit that it was pretty awesome watching a Hollywood movie being filmed, right from my bedroom window!

The cameras started rolling and the actors walked around sombrely. And stopped. Got into position again. Repeated. And stopped. Basically, they just ‘jalan jalan’ (‘walk around’ in Malay) many, many times.

“Action! Now walk! And walk! Back in position….. and walk!”

It got pretty boring after a while. I sent a pic to my nieces on our Whatsap chat. “There’s a Hollywood sci-fi movie being filmed at my condo. Dunno the title or who’s starring in it.”

One of my nieces guessed: “Oh, is it Kristen Stewart?” Ah, makes sense, since the ‘Twilight’ star was in town to film ‘Equals’, a sci fi romance, with co-star Nicholas Hoult, aka Beast in the recent ‘X-Men’ and Jennifer Lawrence’s ex. Kristen and Nicholas had been spotted going on the luge at Sentosa just the day before.

Good to know. But which little person in white was Nicholas Hoult? My niece Debbie, an entertainment buff who blogs at Talkiewood.com, was all, “Go say hi to Nicholas Hoult! Tell him your niece loves him!”

Okay, found him. He was talking to a crew member and for some reason, performing a little belly wriggling routine. Um, sexy.

“NICK!! DEBBIE LOVES YOU!” I shouted. In the safety of my head. What? I love my niece but not enough to look like a fool.Strolling off for a break when the director yelled ‘Cut’.

I wish I could tell you that watching a Hollywood movie being filmed is The MOST! EXCITING! THING! EVER!!! Unfortunately, there was only so much walking around that I could stomach…

So I went back to bed.

Oh wait. There was ONE exciting bit. I stalkerishly filmed a short video of Nick Hoult changing shirts.

“Oh Debbie look! No shirt!”

Filming continued the rest of the day but sorry, I didn’t bother with any more pics.

Day 2:

The crew came back for Round 2 the next afternoon andwould be here till past midnight. My niece Debbie, who has a university scholarship to protect, sadly but wisely decided not to camp over. Instead, this long-suffering auntie agreed to send her real-time updates.

While walking our dog, we snapped this super blur pic of Nick shrugging on his jacket (no naked torso this time) from afar.

Not too sexy for my shirt.

There was MORE walking around. And then it started drizzling. Minders hurriedly pulled out umbrellas and escorted Nick to one of the first-floor apartments where the celebs rested in between takes. (Not the extras, they just hung out at the air-conditioned lobby at one of the blocks.)

Then a full-fledged downpour completely halted filming, just as I went out for the evening. Amazingly, I later received an Instagram message from a Kristen fan who apparently came down from KL and was hanging around outside my condo, all drenched and unable to enter. Sorry kids, security is mad tight here even without Hollywood stars hanging around.

We came back in time to catch a sight of Kristen walking — briskly, this time. Some might call it striding.

I’m striding.

Almost breaking into a trot. Yes!

By now, there was an almost carnival feel at my condo. Even we got a little excited and we joined dozens of neighbours downstairs to watch from a cordoned area. For about 10 minutes, cos we could hardly see anything. The most exciting thing that happened was when the minders escorted Nick and Kristen — and blocked all our cameras — back to the apartment for a break.

Minders escorting Nick and Kristen into their ‘trailer’ (a ground-floor apartment) past a group of excited residents. Yes, that includes us.

We went back home, where we had a better view anyways. As night fell, we began to feel really sorry for the cast and crew. The rain had robbed them of a few precious hours and they were in for a long night. One of the security guys told us he hadn’t had dinner yet, and it was almost 9pm.

Special colour-changing lights set up in the carpark below were switched on to turn Reflections condo into a futuristic set.

We continued watching from my living room window. At one point, I accidentally switched on my phone camera’s flash (I wasn’t filming a video, just being clumsy) and my hubby captured THIS:

“Who’s that??” Sorry, my bad.

Kristen having a quick chat with the crew in between filming.

“And this is what you need to do. You walk towards me. And walk some more.”

And it went on till past 1am, long after we finally got bored and went off to watch more exciting stuff on TV. At one point, we saw a bunch of actors wearing pointy-headed hoodies. We’re betting on that as the next big thing in fashion in a dystopian future not far off.

So that was what happened the day Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult came to shoot a Hollywood movie in my backyard. Now here’s the big question on everyone’s mind: Are they really a couple? Did we see any action?

Besides all that walking/striding/trotting… sorry, we have no clue. We did see them chatting very comfortably with each other, all smiley and laughing, but nah, we definitely didn’t spot them making out by the reflection pools. But who knows? Perhaps they liked our condo so much, they may be planning to buy an apartment here and we can all be neighbours! But that’s another stalker’s job to find out.

By the way, many of our pictures on Instagram and FaceBook were reposted by fans online, often without our permission or credit — one joker even put his/her own watermark on our pics to pass it off as their own. Oi!

Oh, except this one, which was used in 8days, the mag I write food reviews for.

Spotted in 8days — Kristen and Nick in my backyard.

In case you stole our pics and now feel so bad that you want to credit us, here’s one photog you can thank. Say hi to my 6-year-old son Ayden Scott Leo, whom I spotted having this hilarious paparazzi moment:

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Stellar Communications Consultancy is the mouthpiece of Stella Thng, a veteran mass communication practitioner with over 20 years of experience. A former magazine editor with MediaCorp Pte Ltd, she now runs her own editorial, branding and public relations firm while shaping the next generation of communicators as a lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and a former associate lecturer at Republic Polytechnic.